


Tropical heat

by StarkillerBae



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Scientists, Armitage Hux is Not Nice, Canonical Character Death, Drinking, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, M/M, but like actual scientists who do science and not some X-files bullshit, canon dialogue in very un-canon contexts, mention of alcoholism, some kissing and implied sex but nothing explicit, they deserve each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 03:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20075497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarkillerBae/pseuds/StarkillerBae
Summary: Basically TFA in a tropical rainforest research station. Kylo Ren, Hux, Rey, Phasma, Poe, and Finn are graduate students in the jungle. Hijinks ensue.





	Tropical heat

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the AU that precisely 0.000 people asked for! But I wrote the damn thing anyway, and am finally posting it. This was mostly an excuse for me to write about my beloved trash puppies and friends in the wonderful setting of [Redacted] Biological Station, one of my favorite places on Earth, where I wanted to spend the summer again this year but could not. I have made an effort at realism: all of the organisms and interactions in the fic are real, with the exception of one Latin name that the nerds will recognize (and hopefully groan at). Also there's a slight misrepresentation of how science works: in the real world, science advances through the rejection of weak hypotheses, and most ecologists are thick-skinned and professional enough to recognize that when someone definitively rejects their pet hypothesis, it's science in progress rather than a personal vendetta. (Although there are assholish and less assholish ways to refute someone's pet hypothesis, so even if you are a scientist, don't be a Kylo-Ren-in-this-AU kind of scientist. Just don't. Life’s too short.) Finally, Yoda's Law is a real thing in ecology, though not as canonical as this fic would make it seem, discovered by the Japanese plant ecologist Kyoji Yoda (1931-1996). I would dedicate this fic to his memory, but I'm not sure what he would think. Instead I dedicate it to all the Kylux-shipping ecologists in the world-- surely there are more than just me.

“You're not allowed to use a machete in the reserve without permission,” Rey said, slightly annoyed. She’d been at the tropical research station for two months now, long enough to feel like she was justified in schooling newcomers about the rules. And this guy was certainly a newcomer-- she hadn't seen him at the dining hall yet, and beyond that, his heavy dark clothes were ridiculous for jungle wear. The weapon she'd noticed, a red-handled machete nearly a meter long in a dark leather sheath, was strapped to an impractically wide belt. At least he was wearing boots that would suffice for snake protection.

He regarded her for a long moment, his dark brown eyes unreadable. The forest around them buzzed and hummed with unseen life.

“I have permission from the director,” he said. His voice was dark and resonant.

Rey softened. “Oh. Sorry. I don't think we’ve met. I’m Rey.”

“Kylo,” he said. “Dr. Kylo Ren. I'm doing a postdoc in the Snoke lab.”

“Oh, are you with Hux?” Rey had met the red-haired microbial ecologist several weeks ago. He had struck her as unbearably tightly wound; nobody else she’d ever met attempted to conduct lab work, let alone tropical field research, without getting a single hair out of place. She hated to imagine his annual budget for hair gel. But the man was intelligent, she had to grant that. In the impressively detailed and organized research talk Hux had delivered the day after he arrived, his title slide had listed his doctorate from Oxford and his current affiliation with the Snoke lab.

At the mention of Hux, a fleeting expression of displeasure crossed Ren's face. “Same lab. Different projects. Who do you work with?”

“I'm doing a PhD with Organa at FIU. Solo is on my committee. I don't know who else yet. I just finished my first year. This summer’s a pilot project…”

But Ren didn't seem to be listening. “Solo,” he said with derision. “And Organa. Their science is so out of date. Weak, untestable hypotheses. All based on anecdote and field observation.”

Rey crossed her arms and set her jaw. It seemed a bit early in their acquaintanceship for him to be insulting her entire graduate committee. “A lot of important ideas in science start from field observation.”

“Yes, but they shouldn't  _ end _ there! Ecology needs a basis in computationally sound, empirically derived theory. Not…  _ sentiment _ .” He practically spat the last word.

Rey sighed. She had to prepare another climbing rig before the end of the day, and she didn't want to waste time arguing with this arrogant newcomer. She could feel the humidity of the afternoon thunderstorms already building. “Right,” she said. “And if you’ll excuse me, I have some empirical data to gather.” She lifted her hiking staff and set off down the slippery red clay path with surprising speed.

Kylo Ren watched until she vanished behind palm fronds at the next bend of the trail. He drew the red-handled machete and angrily slashed through one of the  _ Geonoma  _ stems that leaned over the red mud path.  _ Solo. Organa. Hux. _ He continued slashing until the fronds of the erstwhile palm were reduced to a pile of green slivers.

*****

The dining hall echoed with boisterous conversations in several languages. A group of German researchers at one table vigorously debated something that Rey couldn't quite follow. At the next table, Phasma presided over the small army of undergraduates who worked with her studying the ant community in the leaf litter. Taller, blonder, and more staunchly British than anyone else in a 500 mile radius, Phasma commanded obedience. She had a habit of referring to her assistants not by name, but rather by the alphanumeric designation of the plot assigned to each of them: “TN-3027, pass me the chili sauce!”

Rey bypassed Phasma’s table and set down her tray of rice and beans at the end of the next table full of researchers, next to Finn and Poe. They greeted her with their usual boyish enthusiasm. Poe was in the midst of explaining to Jess, several seats down, how he and Finn had started collaborating on a new project.

“So he says to me, 'I need a pilot.’ And I was like, 'you need a pilot?!’”

Poe was a skilled engineer who built, equipped, and flew his own drones, allowing him to explore the outer edges of the forest canopy. Rey’s climbing gear could get her into the inner branches of the enormous trees, but Poe had an advantage in reaching the places that no one else could. At least, in getting cameras and sensors up there. Finn's project on leaf cutter ant behavior in the rainforest canopy would depend greatly on Poe’s skilled piloting.

“FN-2187.” Phasma leaned over the back of Finn’s chair.

“The name's Finn, Phasma. I haven't worked in your lab for two years now.”

“More’s the pity,” she said. “If you’d stayed on for a Master's with us you’d be almost finished by now.”

“Yeah, but now I have an advisor who actually knows my name. What do you want, Phasma?”

“Party tomorrow night in the Researchers’ Lounge. Bring rum.”

“Who's invited?” Poe asked her.

“All the researchers. I'm not bringing my troops, if that's what you're asking.”

“What about those two?” Rey indicated the far end of the table where Hux and Kylo Ren sat stiffly, eating without talking. Each gave the impression of having sat with the other as a last resort. “Hux is kind of a stick in the mud and Kylo's kind of an asshole, but they're researchers. We should invite them.”

“Well, I suppose.” Phasma headed for the two men. 

“Wait, did you say Kylo?” Poe took a second look at the dark-haired man, whose long locks were still plastered to his forehead with sweat. “That's not… is that Kylo Ren? The Jedi Killer? Shit.”

“Jedi Killer?” Rey drew back.

“He didn't really kill anyone. But he could be brutal taking down someone's ideas. You know Yoda’s Power Law?”

“Every plant ecologist knows Yoda's Law,” she replied, faintly impressed. “But not that many engineers do.”

“Engineer with an ecology background.” Poe flashed a self-deprecating smile. He continued with the story. “When he was an undergrad, Ren was something of a math genius. He did a project with one of Yoda's former students. It was supposed to be something simple, you know, demonstrating the universality of the -3/2 self-thinning rule from a mathematical perspective. But Ren took it further, using, like, individual-based models that incorporated neighborhood effects, and he ended up totally blowing sixty years of theory out of the water.”

“Jedi Killer,” Finn chuckled. “The dude took down Yoda.”

Poe frowned. “The way he handled it was pretty rough, though. He gave a talk at ESA that year that pretty much cut the floor out from under the professor he’d been working with. The guy was right there in the audience getting his ass handed to him. He ended up dropping out of academia entirely. Rumor has it that he’s hiding out at a Zen center on some island in Japan. So yeah, Ren.” An expression of something like regret crossed Poe's handsome face. “He’s brilliant, but he's… not nice.”

“How do you know all this?” Rey asked him.

Poe blushed and looked down. “He was a year ahead of me at Tulane. And for a couple of months, he was my boyfriend.”

*****

Rey awoke as always a few minutes before dawn, listening to the roaring calls of howler monkeys and the marimba-like notes of motmots bouncing across the forest canopy. She inhaled a deep breath of the humid jungle air, scented with mysterious orchids and the perpetual undertone of decaying leaves. She pulled on her utilitarian jungle outfit and boots and headed for the dining hall on the far side of the slow brown river.

Halfway across the suspension bridge, Rey paused to watch a flight of green macaws as they emerged out of the mist in the first rays of morning light, their graceful forms a strange contrast with their raucous calls. Down below in the shadows along the river bank, a sun bittern flashed its brightly patterned wings. Rey smiled to herself. It was going to be a good day.

Just then, the suspension bridge vibrated with heavy, careless footsteps. The sun bittern, startled, vanished back into the thickets of  _ Heliconia _ on the bank. Rey turned to see the black-clad figure of Kylo Ren, his face set in a grim frown.

“Morning,” Rey said tentatively.

“Talk to me after coffee,” he growled as he brushed past her and kept walking. Rey stared after him, wondering what had happened to this man to make him such an asshole.

At breakfast, Rey found Poe and Kylo sitting across from each other at the end of a table, engaged in a tense staring match. She considered joining them, but thought better of it and took her breakfast tray to one of the tables on the porch where she could watch hummingbirds and butterflies drinking from the long purple flower spikes of the  _ Stachytarpheta.  _ But their voices carried, and she couldn't help overhearing.

Poe sighed. “So who talks first? Do you talk first? We can't keep pretending that we’re strangers and nothing happened.”

“We were kids, Poe. What do you want me to say, that I still care? I don't.”

“You were the first person I ever really loved.”

“I'm not that same person anymore.” His voice was bleak.

Poe put his face in his hands for a moment. “No, I guess you're not. But I can't help remembering. I used to feel like you knew all the depths of me, like you could see into my mind. I could never see into yours.”

“It's over, Poe. It’s been over for years. I can't afford to form attachments, not now, not when my work with Snoke is finally taking off. This could be a _ Nature _ paper.”

“So you value your publications more than human connections?”

Ren’s voice was distant and almost anguished, but clear when he spoke. “Yes.”

“Then the man I loved is truly gone.” Poe lifted his tray and came to sit with Rey on the porch. His habitual good humor had failed momentarily. 

Rey wasn't sure how to cheer him up, or whether cheering up was even what he needed right now. She offered a smile of commiseration. “I'm going to get more coffee. You want some?”

“Thanks.”

While she was up, Finn joined their table. Phasma's undergrads were beginning to file in for breakfast, bringing a waft of DEET and funky boots. Soon Poe and Finn were deep in conversation about the technical details of the sensor arrays they planned to deploy that day. But Rey thought she saw a lingering sadness in Poe's dark eyes. 

*****

Rey loved being in the forest canopy more than anything else in her life. Connected to the rest of the world only by the thin line of her climbing rope, she could float among the branches and explore a world beyond the reach of humanity. Birds and butterflies passed by below her; monkeys and sloths ignored her or seemed to take her for one of their own. The air in the canopy, stirred by momentary breezes, felt cooler and drier than the stifling humid atmosphere of the understory. Perched 40 meters in the air on the limb of an enormous emergent  _ Astrodeleus imperialis, _ Rey felt like the queen of a primordial realm.

Moving outward along the branch, stepping lightly with most of her weight taken up by the climbing rig, Rey paused to gather samples from another bromeliad. She measured the dimensions of the leaves and used a syringe to draw up some of the water trapped between them so she could analyze the diversity of the organisms found there. She labeled the test tube and stowed it in her pack. Sometimes she could scavenge bromeliads from fallen trees after an intense storm, but she preferred to be up in the canopy. And it took a hell of a storm to bring down a tree as tough as  _ Astrodeleus. _

Before she could measure the next bromeliad, her concentration was broken by a terrible sound of destruction from the forest floor below. Kylo Ren was viciously slashing a stand of bamboo near the base of her tree. His red-handled machete flashed with reflected sunlight and vibrated with the force of his blows.

“What are you _ doing?!”  _ Rey shouted down.

If he was startled to hear a voice coming from the canopy, he hid it well. “Working,” he said with a dark glower. “Tephritidae oviposit on damaged bamboo. If I want flies to study, I damage some bamboo. And I do have permission.”

“Well, you're about three meters away from slashing through my anchor rope. Much as I love being up in this tree, I do need to get down sometimes. And I prefer to descend at less than 9.8 meters per second squared.”

“I see it,” he said shortly. “The damage I do is controlled.”

“Controlled? You could have fooled me.” Rey was tempted to say something more, but he had already turned back to slashing. She watched for a few moments. In destruction he had a grace and ease that was absent from his usual motions, his heavy-footed walk and the way he ducked through doorways as if overestimating his own considerable height. Swinging the machete, all his muscles moved in concert and the dark intensity of his gaze became softer, nearly soulful. With sunflecks flashing off the polished blade, it was almost beautiful.

Rey was not the only one admiring Kylo's form. Hux was busy sampling the soil from a leaf cutter ant nest near the trail not far away. He used a sterile probe to lift a few milliliters of soil into a sterile test tube. In this sample, he knew, untold millions of bacteria stood ready to do his bidding and reveal their secrets in the lab. This was one of the moments he loved in microbial ecology.  _ This is true power, _ he thought to himself as he capped the test tube.  _ Not the few thousand trees of the forest ecologist, not the measly few individuals of the herpetologist or mammalogist, but millions of organisms at my fingertips. My ability to test hypotheses is almost unlimited. _

Even as he thought this, though, his eyes were drawn to Kylo Ren’s figure as he swung the machete in practiced curves. The sculpted muscles of his back and shoulders tensed, clearly visible through the sweat-soaked layers of his black clothes.  _ Power of another kind,  _ Hux thought to himself. Though he had worked alongside Ren for more than a year now, the two of them barely spoke. Ren's prickly temper and gloom discouraged fraternization. And they had certainly never touched, except perhaps to shake hands when they were first introduced. Yet Hux found himself imagining how those hard muscles would feel under his hands, how that fearsome body would feel pressed against him… Hux forced himself to look away, frowning at his lack of control. He was a postdoc in the Snoke lab, not a sex-crazed undergrad. This was beneath him. But it was too late: the evidence of his arousal strained against his field pants.

*****

The screen door of the Researchers’ Lounge creaked open, admitting Poe, an already-tipsy Phasma, and a cloud of mosquitoes. Outside, the solid totality of darkness of the jungle night crouched against the window screens. Rey and Finn sat on the grimy faux leather couch, drinking rum and cokes out of glasses and coffee mugs purloined from the dining hall. They raised their mugs in a toast. Phasma refilled her glass with straight rum from the bottle on the low table and returned the toast.

“To bloody wars and dread diseases!”

“The hell kind of toast is that, Phasma?” Finn said.

“It's what the officers in the Raj used to drink to. The only ways they’d ever get promoted. Seems appropriate for academics, doesn't it? How many tenure track jobs are there? And how will we all get them except by attrition of the current ranks?”

Rey sighed. “Maybe we should quit while we're ahead and just, I don't know, open a coffee shop or something.”

“You got  _ your _ tenure track job, Phasma,” Finn pointed out.

“By being bloody phenomenal, and don't you ever forget that.”

“Okay, Captain,” Finn said. “Hey, did you get any response from those Snoke lab guys?”

“They should be here in a few. Hux was in the lab when I left. Then again, when is he ever  _ not _ in the lab? Rey, do you have your iPod speakers? A party's not a party without a smidge of reggaetón.”

Daddy Yankee was soon blaring from the staticky speakers, drowning out the drip of water from the leaves and the frenetic sounds of frogs and insects behind the screens. Phasma began to gyrate her hips to the pulsing beat. Poe poured himself a shot of rum and drank it in one gulp. He extended a hand to Finn, with something vulnerable in his expression. Finn grinned and got to his feet. Soon the two men were intertwined, snaking their way across the dance floor as though joined at the hips.

This was when Hux came through the door.

“Drink?” Rey offered.

He sighed. “What the hell. I'm not getting any more work done tonight.”

“That's the spirit.” She poured, going heavy on the rum. “Where's Ren?”

His pallid face wrinkled with exasperation. “How should I know? He’s not my pet.”

“He’d be a cute pet,” Phasma mused. “That soft hair… You’d have to get a good leash and train him not to bite… Hux, dear, are you blushing?”

To his horror, he found that he was. “It's the alcohol,” he said shortly.

“Of which you have yet to take a sip. Don't worry, Hux, I won't say a thing to the hulking git.” Phasma winked.

A thin rain began tapping the roof, intensifying to a steady drumming. The frog sounds picked up, now audible through the music. The blueish glow of a headlamp came down the path, and a few moments later Ren appeared in the doorway with raindrops sparkling in his dark hair.

“I heard there was liquor,” he said.

“We’ve got all manner of good things here,” Phasma said with a grin, handing him a glass. “Would you care for coke with it?”

Ren shook his head and poured the water glass halfway full. In the low light of the lounge, his face was mostly shadow, but his eyes glinted. Hux couldn't look away. But Ren wasn't focused on the red-haired man; he was gazing at Finn and Poe as they circled the dance floor like a single symbiotic organism. He swallowed most of the rum in one gulp.

“I should go,” he said, almost to himself. “There's no place for me here.” He drained the rest of his glass and left, the screen door banging behind him. His heavy footsteps faded into the jungle night.

Hux grabbed his headlamp and umbrella and followed. “Ren! Wait for me.”

He caught up with the man on the porch of the old lab building. Rain dripped steadily off the eaves with the kind of insistence that suggested it would continue all night. Ren was huddled at the end of the bench on the lab porch with his head in his hands. “Why do I fuck everything up?” he moaned.

Hux sat beside him. “Because you rush in without thinking, you trample all over people's ideas… because you have  _ no earthly clue  _ of the impact you have on anyone…”

Ren raised his head. It was too dark to see his expression, and Hux was petrified for a moment, thinking that he’d gone too far and awakened Ren’s smoldering rage. But he only sighed. And then, miraculously, unaccountably, Ren leaned toward Hux, took the man’s face in his hands, and kissed him.

Hux’s mind went blank with astonishment. Ren's mouth was hungry, searching. He tasted of cheap rum and some intoxicating musk that was entirely his own. Hux reached out to embrace him, feeling at last the heat of those corded muscles through the fabric of Ren's shirt.

Late that night, very late, Rey saw the blue glow of a headlamp proceeding unsteadily down the path from Hux's cabin to Ren’s. And even later, she heard Finn and Poe stifling laughter as they stumbled in the direction of Poe's room, still clinging to each other.

*****

After dinner one night a few weeks later, Hux found himself grudgingly sharing a lab bench with Kylo Ren.

“Careful, Ren. Those diffraction columns took the better part of ten days to set up.”

Ren was sorting a Malaise trap sample, using forceps to separate the species he sought from the dark soup of alcohol-preserved insect corpses. From Hux's perspective, the volatile man and his nasty sample were far too close to the glassware containing his latest experiment.

Ren took out his earbuds. A faint and tinny strain of Breaking Benjamin floated into the room, barely perceptible over the twin hums of the air conditioning and the -80 freezer. “You’re always bitching about how long your setup takes. Have you considered just sequencing everything, using a clone library?”

Hux took offense. “My methods are exceptionally suited to the research questions I pursue. What do you know, anyway? You're just an entomologist.”

“Mathematical ecologist,” Ren said through gritted teeth. “I just study insects because they're everywhere. And easy to kill.” The dangerous glint in Ren’s dark eyes made Hux suspect that insects weren't the only thing that Ren was thinking about killing. It was amazing, he reflected, that after that one rum-soaked night of sloppy, desperate sex, the two of them had gone back to their usual tart bickering as if nothing had happened. If it weren't for the bite marks and bruises that had lingered into the next week, Hux would almost have thought he had dreamed the whole episode.

Finn and Poe, on the other hand, were definitely and publicly an item. And here they came through the lab door together, carrying boxes of spare parts, a soldering iron, and the half-crushed remains of a recently crashed drone. They were laughing loudly at some shared joke.

Hux fixed the two men with a weapons-grade glare. “Could you keep it down? Some of us have work to do.”

“Sorry,” Poe said. “We’ll be quiet. Stealth mode, eh, buddy?” He winked at Finn. Then his expression changed. “Hey, that's my t-shirt! You found my t-shirt!”

“What, this one?” Finn pointed at his shirt, the schematics of the Millennium Falcon screen-printed in white on a background that had probably once been red. “I found it behind one of the washers in the laundry room a couple days ago. I didn't know it was yours. I'm doing laundry tomorrow; you can have it back when it's clean.”

“Naw, keep it. It looks good on you.” Poe bit his lip as he regarded Finn. The man would look good in anything, he reflected-- but he looked best clad in nothing at all, his compact and muscular dark-skinned body stretched out in Poe's bed. Poe leaned toward Finn and they shared a deep, lingering kiss.

“Really,” Hux huffed. “This is a laboratory, not a public snogging booth. Grow up.”

“Or get a room,” Kylo growled.

“Fine, you don't have to set your attack dog on us,” Poe retorted to Hux. “Let's get out of here, buddy. I think I've got some bench space left in my office.”

Ren put his earbuds back in and Hux was left alone with his thoughts. He risked a glance at the man beside him. Ren's eyes were cast down toward his work, the brooding angles of his features still. Several locks of his impossible hair hung down in front of his eyes. Hux felt an absurd and entirely unwanted urge to reach out and touch that gorgeous, aggravating face, but he held himself back.  _ I am a postdoc in the Snoke lab,  _ he repeated to himself.  _ Not some sex-crazed undergrad. These feelings are beneath me. _

Rey came in from the computer lab carrying a notebook and a tray of samples. She set up a dissecting scope across the bench from Ren, carefully leaving space between her scope and Hux's diffraction columns, and began to scan a sample for microinvertebrates.

Hux redrew a set of schematics, tweaking the placement of a relief valve to make it easier to take subsamples without disturbing the rest of the column. Pausing between test tubes, Rey glanced at Hux's notebook.

“Have you thought about multiple access ports? What if you went horizontally here and took this branch at an angle?”

Hux regarded her with annoyance that slowly turned to grudging admiration as he considered her suggestion. “That just might work. Where did you learn this stuff?”

Rey shrugged. “Here and there. I just like fixing things. Before I went to college I was working in a junkyard. I started with little stuff, but when I was in high school I fixed up a motorcycle. Mostly based on YouTube tutorials. I kind of had to; it was my only transportation.”

“Impressive,” Ren said with a bit of a sneer. “From the junkyard to the science lab. Pity you ended up with such second-rate scientists as mentors.”

“What do you have against them, anyway? Disagreeing with someone's approach is one thing, but you don't have to be so…  _ virulent _ about it.”

“Good science means eliminating weak hypotheses. And if the people who put them forward are weak as well…” Kylo paused.

“How do you even know them? You can't judge somebody you’ve never met. That's as bad as… as bad as rejecting a hypothesis without any data.”

“Oh, I know them,” Ren said grimly. “I know them all too well. Organa’s brother was my undergraduate thesis advisor.”

“Skywalker?” Rey breathed. “But I thought he'd left academia!”

“You might as well tell her the rest of it,” Hux said.

Kylo shot him a murderous look, but after a moment he continued. “They're my parents. Solo and Organa, before they split up to pursue their all-important research careers, even though they're both still at the same damn university. Before I changed my name and set out to do meaningful work of my own under Snoke's guidance, work that brings  _ order _ to the discipline of ecology…”

Rey realized that her jaw was hanging open and carefully closed her mouth. She said, and immediately regretted, the first thing that came to her mind. “She never mentioned having a son.”

Something that might have been pain flashed across Ren's face, replaced almost immediately with grim anger. “She  _ doesn't _ have a son any more. Not in any real sense. She cared more about her graduate students than she ever did about her own brat. And Solo… I suppose he seems like some kind of father figure to you. He would have disappointed you. Half my childhood he was away on collecting trips to the Congo or the Amazon or Papua New Guinea. The rest of it he was hitting the bottle.” 

“He’s been sober the whole time I’ve known him,” Rey said. Indeed, it was one of the first things she'd noticed about the older scientist, beyond his sardonic deadpan humor and his wealth of hair-raising stories from the field. At the weekly departmental gatherings after seminars, Solo always had a glass of water in hand instead of the nearly-obligatory beer.

Ren gave a snort of bitter laughter. “Figures. Just like my-- like his ex-wife. He can pull it together for his grad students but not for his progeny. It doesn't matter. They mean nothing to me now.”

“I never knew my parents,” Rey said, almost to herself. “They died in a mining accident when I was too young to remember. Mr. Plutt at the junkyard was my legal guardian, but he never did much more than throw food in my general direction every now and then. As soon as I could, I got a scholarship to the state university and got out of there. Whatever future I have, it's out here in the wider world.” She had a sudden vivid image of Ms. Kanata, her high school math teacher, an ancient wizened woman with enormous spectacles who had been the first person to encourage Rey to imagine a world beyond the Jakku Valley.

Finn burst in the door. “Hey, you guys want to see a boa eating a lizard the size of my arm?”

Hux and Ren chose to continue their work, but Rey jumped up to follow him. Ren stared after her for a few moments, a strange mix of emotions playing over his features.

*****

A few nights later, Hux and Ren were Skyping with their postdoc advisor. The weak overhead lighting in Snoke's office made the elderly scientist appear even more spectral and cadaverous than he did in person. A laboratory accident in his graduate days had left him with a wicked scar down the center of his face and a wheezing, sepulchral voice. But a series of masterful papers in  _ Science  _ and _ Nature _ had propelled him through the ranks and into the position of Distinguished Professor at Harvard.

“Gentlemen,” Snoke rasped. “What news?”

Hux gave an overview of the recent advances in his work, and Ren added the latest findings from his project.

“The results from the diversity/stability work are remarkably robust,” Hux said. “I suggest we present them.”

Snoke waved a hand. “Go. Prepare an abstract for ESA.”

It was clearly a dismissal. Hux bowed his head in acknowledgement and headed for his own office. The Ecological Society of America meeting was fast approaching, with abstracts due at the end of the week.

“Kylo Ren. There is something else you wish to discuss.”

It was eerie how Snoke appeared to read minds sometimes. Kylo nodded. “There's a girl here,” he said. “She's untrained, but smarter than she knows. Good aptitude for mechanical engineering, asks the right questions. And she's motivated. Came out of some hellhole upbringing in West Virginia into a Ph.D. program. If you could get her to transfer to Harvard, she could be a real asset.”

Snoke considered. “If this girl is as you say… introduce her to me at ESA.”

*****

The conference center housing the Ecological Society of America meeting was at the outskirts of a large Midwestern city. One side of the hotel faced a wide muddy river, and on the other side a maze of highway overpasses threaded among high-rise buildings on the way to a cheaper district a mile away with budget hotels and a street of rowdy bars. Finn, Poe, and Rey were staying at a Super 8 near the bars. On the first day of the meeting, they walked over to the conference center together to pick up their name tags.

Standing in line in the enormous lobby, Rey recognized a number of distinguished ecologists from around the world. She clutched the tube holding her poster on the diversity of arthropods in bromeliads and felt distinctly small.

Poe must have seen the uncertainty in her expression. He squeezed her arm reassuringly. “Don't let these thugs scare you! Give it everything you've got.”

The first few days of the conference went quickly, packed with talks and boozy reunions. Poe chaired a session on the use of drones in research. Han Solo presented 30 years of research on long-distance dispersal. Finn and Rey held their own at the poster session. Hux presented his paper in the largest meeting hall, and was secretly thrilled (though, as ever, his carefully schooled expression gave nothing away) to see the room packed full of attentive faces. Leia Organa gave her talk, on the importance of natural history education, to a smaller but no less enthusiastic audience. Rey congratulated her advisor at a reception that afternoon.

Organa sighed. “I just hope our message is getting through. Nobody wants to fund natural history these days. We are raising a generation of scientists who can do all the latest statistical tricks and conjure miracles in the lab, but wouldn't recognize their study species in the wild if it bit them.”

“There are some people who can bridge the gap,” Rey said. The image came to her, unbidden: Kylo Ren leaning over the lab bench to sort a Malaise trap sample, his unruly hair so unlike his mother's careful and elaborate styles. He knew the species, and from the talk he’d given that afternoon, he knew some pretty state-of-the-art biodiversity statistics. Looking at Organa now, Rey could see the family resemblance: those expressive dark eyes, the cheekbones. And Han Solo's sardonic crooked smile. (And there he was, Solo, surrounded by an admiring group of younger ecologists, the habitual glass of water in his hand. His technician Chewie loomed beside him, nearly seven feet tall, with his mountain man beard and shaggy hair blending into one mass that nearly obscured his features. He gave an urf-urf-urf of laughter at something Han had said.) Yes, Rey could definitely see the family resemblance between these two professors and their wayward son. It was a mystery quite where the ears came from, though. Rey tried to find the words to ask Organa about her past, their marriage, their son. But she couldn't quite figure out where to start.

Late that evening as they were headed back to their budget hotel, Rey and Finn noticed two figures spotlit by a street light on the neighboring overpass. It took Rey a moment to recognize them: Han Solo and Kylo Ren. She couldn't hear their conversation over the rush of traffic, but the light caught their expressions clearly. Ren was ruthless, fired with dark anger, triumphant. Solo looked stricken, suddenly much older than Rey had ever seen him appear. As Finn and Rey watched, Ren launched one last verbal salvo that left his father looking as though he’d been cored. Ren turned on his heel and stalked back toward the conference center. Solo continued onwards, heading in the direction of the bars.

Finn and Rey exchanged a look and hurried to follow him. But the overpass that they were on curved away from the one that he was following, spitting them out in a confusing tangle of off-ramps without crosswalks. By the time they reached the street of bars, crowded with smokers out on the sidewalks, Han Solo was nowhere to be seen.

They caught up with him in the third bar, or maybe it was the fourth. He was drinking whiskey with a beer chaser, and it was clear that it was one in a sequence of many such drinks. He regarded them with a slightly unfocused gaze.

“Solo… Han… I mean, Professor…” Finn tried.

He laughed mirthlessly. “Did you just call me Solo?”

“Don't do this,” Rey pleaded. “Whatever he said to you, it's not worth it.”

He looked bitter and defeated, and for an instant almost exactly like his son. “Finn. Rey. You're good kids. But you can't save me. Go home.”

They tried to convince him, but he was adamant. Eventually, with heavy hearts, Finn and Rey left for their hotel.

*****

The next morning, the main hall of the conference center filled up for the plenary session. Ecologists filed in, bearing coffee cups and napkins of pastry crumbs. The president of the society, a diminutive dark-haired woman, moved toward the center of the low stage with reluctant steps. Watching her, Rey felt the energy in the room change. Whatever she had to say, it wouldn't be good news.

She reached the podium, grasped it with both hands, and took a deep breath. “Welcome back to the fourth day of our meeting. Before we begin, I must share some tragic news with all of you. The science of ecology lost one of our own last night. A beloved figure, sometimes controversial, always outspoken, a friend and mentor to many of us… last night, Dr. Han Solo fell to his death from a highway overpass.” The room erupted. Rey heard her own anguished cry blending with Finn's, and Chewie's wordless howl of despair rising above everything. “He died instantly at the scene,” the president continued. “There was no sign of foul play, but… alcohol may have been a factor. There will be a ceremony of remembrance tomorrow afternoon at four in conference room B. Let us take a moment of silence now to honor our friend and colleague, gone too soon.”

Rey bowed her head, and as she did so, she caught sight of Kylo Ren at the end of the next row of chairs. Hate surged through her. She stared at him, expecting to see a cruel smile on his face. But he looked stricken, young, bereft. Rey looked away.

*****

As the crowd filed out of the hall, Rey found herself beside Kylo. She tried to ignore him, but to her dismay he spoke directly to her. “You need a teacher. I can show you the ways of biodiversity statistics…”

Rey drew back, her forehead wrinkled with horror. “You?! You're a monster! I saw what you did to your father.” 

Ren reacted as though he’d been struck, his dark eyes shiny with tears that threatened to spill over. But he said nothing and turned away, defeated.

Rey caught up with Leia Organa at the coffee break. She had the look of someone holding herself together with steely determination. Rey reached out to touch her arm, tentatively. “I'm… I’m sorry for your loss.” In response, the older woman drew her into a wordless embrace.

When they broke apart, Organa smiled at her with haunted eyes. “Rey, I have something for you.” She held out a thin blue airmail envelope addressed to Rey, care of Organa at the conference center hotel.

A shiver went through Rey as she read the single sheet of paper inside.

_ Dear Rey, _

_ I am writing to inquire whether you would be able to take a position in my laboratory. From what my sister has told me, you have the perfect combination of skills and readiness to learn. Although she would be sad to see you leave FIU, she has given her blessing if you do wish to transfer and train with me. _

_ Years ago I left my formal teaching position to pursue a more contemplative life here at the Center for Zen Studies here in Ryukyu. Although I have not published anything in more than a decade, I have never stopped reading the ecological literature and thinking about the future of our discipline. I have been studying the notebooks of my Masters advisor, Professor Yoda. I believe it is time to train a new generation of ecologists, thinkers who can combine rigorous field observation and robust statistical methods.  _

_ If you wish to join me, Han Solo's technician Chewie knows how to find the Center. I do hope that you will do me the honor of being my student. _

_ Sincerely, _

_ Dr. Luke Skywalker _

_ ***** _

As the conference was breaking up, Hux came across Kylo Ren slumped across a chair in the lobby. He looked bloodless and wounded, misery written in every line of his too-large body. “Hux, I failed,” he said, almost inaudible.

Hux sat down in the chair beside him with a frown, brushing an imaginary wrinkle from the shoulder of his impeccably pressed suit. “What do you mean, you failed?”

“I didn't bring the girl to Snoke. And Han Solo... I thought I'd feel stronger when that bastard finally kicked the bucket. It's not like he ever gave a shit about  _ me.  _ But instead I just feel… so… so  _ broken.” _

Hux waited. Something like compassion stirred in him, deep down under his tightly controlled exterior. Ren's eyes were shut tightly, and tears gathered his lashes into points. He took a shuddering breath. “I need to be stronger than this. I need to get rid of this foolish desire for… attachments. My work is enough. Snoke is wise. My work sustains me…”

Hux leaned closer. “Not every attachment is a liability,” he said carefully. “Some attachments make you stronger. More powerful. Ren.” Hux waited until the other raised his eyes. “Kiss me.”

They stumbled down the hallway toward Hux's room, with Hux half-carrying the taller man. Outside the door, Kylo's strength rallied and he lifted Hux against the wall. Their mouths came together in a desperate kiss, all tongues and teeth, hungry and searching. Kylo's hands stroked Hux's back and closed on his slim hips. Their bodies leaned together, Hux fitting into all the hollow places in Kylo, a delicious heat trapped between them. “Imagine,” Hux breathed in Kylo's ear. “Imagine what we could be together.”


End file.
